


Like a Game of Jenga

by katikat



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-16 23:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14821104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katikat/pseuds/katikat
Summary: Take out that one crucial piece and the whole thing crumbles. Or, Mac’s not there to convince Thornton that The Ghost isn’t dead. Mac’s POV. A what-if MacGyver story set in ep 106. (Unbeta'd)





	Like a Game of Jenga

The shock wave flings him back, hard against their car, smashing his head against the passenger side window and knocking the breath out of his lungs. He drops to the ground, wheezing and lightheaded, and his ears are ringing so hard he can barely hear the roar of the flames nearby.

For a moment, Mac stays down, on all fours, trying and failing to get his breath back. Everything’s swimming before his eyes, the world’s tilting this way and that, and in some distant corner of his mind he realizes that that’s not good. But he doesn’t seem to feel any pain. Which he would find strange, too, if only he could think clearly.

And then he remembers: _Jack! Riley!_

Eyes wide, Mac scrambles to his feet - the ringing in his ears intensifies, turning high-pitched, and blackness threatens to overwhelm his vision - and leaning with one hand against the car, he stumbles around it, to the other side, away from the flames, to where his friends were thrown.

“Jack,”  he croaks out, and dropping to his knees by Jack’s side, he reaches out for him.

Jack grimaces and groans, holding his ribcage tight. “Jesus Christ,” he curses through gritted teeth. “I think-I think I broke my ribs.”

With his hand on Jack’s shoulder, Mac looks over to Riley who’s slowly sitting up, carefully touching her scraped and bleeding forehead. “Riles?” Mac calls out. The word feels thick in his mouth, his tongue can’t seem to wrap around it, and his hearing’s not clearing, just the opposite, everything sounds more… muffled; distantly he wonders if his eardrums burst.

She glances in his direction and gives him the thumb up, though her expression is not exactly happy. Then her eyes widen, and she pulls her backpack around and unzips it quickly, checking her laptop, her most prized possession. If Mac didn’t feel so off, he would chuckle.

Still holding his ribs, Jack opens one eye to look at Mac. “You okay?” he asks.

And Mac’s about to nod because sure he is, up and running, but… All of a sudden, he feels incredibly tired, almost faint. At some point, his fingers and toes started to tingle, and now, all his strength seems to have left him. How…  _odd._

“Mac?” Jack asks with a frown and struggles to sit up, even though the pain in his ribs makes him gasp.

 _You should lie down_ , Mac wants to tell him, but when he opens his mouth, it’s blood and not words that comes out. First, it’s just an aftertaste, then a trickle and then a stream he can’t seem to stop, no matter how hard he swallows.

Jack’s eyes grow wide with shock, then dread. “Mac?” he repeats more urgently.

Slowly, Mac takes his hand off Jack’s shoulder to push his leather jacket aside, and looking down, he makes a soft, startled sound. Because there’s a piece of metal sticking out of him, its sharp, jagged edges ripping at the material of his blood-soaked shirt, at his  _flesh_. It’s big and ugly, embedded in his stomach… and yet, Mac doesn’t feel a thing.  _That-that’s bad, right?_

Then Jack’s there, gripping his shoulders, with so much fear reflected in his eyes. Mac wants to reassure him that he’s fine, that it doesn’t hurt, there’s no pain, but he can’t find the strength to do so. He just breathes out, “Jack…?”

“Jesus. Jesus Christ, kid…”

And then Mac’s falling, his eyes are sliding shut, and a split of a second before he loses consciousness, it finally starts to  _hurt_. And the pain’s so bad that he’s glad he won’t be awake to experience it.

* * *

He wakes up in a hospital, in a private room bathed in a soft light. The sun must be setting outside.

Mac licks his lips and sighs a little. The pain’s gone, and the cottony softness of his brain suggests that they have him on the  _really_ good drugs. He hates feeling this…  _fuzzy_ and slow.

He looks around the room - and there, standing by the window with his back to him, is Jack. He looks, well, not his exuberant self, that’s for sure. Something must be terribly wrong.

“Hey,” Mac whispers.

Jack turns, startled, and for a moment, he just stares at Mac. Then his whole face, his whole posture softens and his eyes become suspiciously shiny. “Hey,” he responds hoarsely and steps up to the bed, sitting down on the edge of it, careful not to jostle Mac - and his ribs, as it seems. “How are you feeling?”

“Thick,” Mac responds honestly. “ _Floaty_.”

Grinning, Jack pats him on the hand. “That’s an improvement, believe me, kid.”

 _Is it?_ Mac thinks. Just how bad off was he before?

“What happened?” he asks.

“There was explosion, The Ghost blew up the warehouse he was renting,” Jack explains. “You got hit by the flying debris. A piece of metal did a number on your insides there.” He nods at Mac’s stomach.

_Oh. Right. That._

“You okay? And Riley?” Mac asks immediately.

“We’re both just fine, don’t you worry about that,” Jack assures him.

Mac  _is_ assured. But there’s still something  _off_. He can sense it. He’s known Jack for years now, he can tell when he’s keeping something from him. For someone in the spy business, Jack sure is a reluctant liar.

“What’s wrong?” Mac asks.

He can see Jack thinking, considering what to tell him, what he’s up to knowing. And that makes Mac even more apprehensive.

“Come on, Jack,” he prompts.

Jack takes a deep breath. “That explosion. They thought The Ghost blew himself up, became careless, building something called… ‘The Mother of Satan’?” He looks at Mac, unsure if he got it right.

Mac nods. “Yeah, that stuff is nasty, highly dangerous. But…” He frowns. “The Ghost wouldn’t do that. He would never make a mistake like that.  _Never_."

Grimacing, Jack sighs. “Yeah, well. Too bad you were too busy bleeding out on the operating table to tell them that.”

“Jack…?” Mac asks softly, his heart skipping a beat, making the machines by his bed blink in warning.

Jack rubs his forehead. “That friend of yours, Charlie, and Thornton, they made a judgment call. Based on the evidence on-site, they came to the conclusion The Ghost was dead and the peace talks were safe… Turns out, they got it wrong.

“Several hours later, a bomb went off downtown,” Jack says quietly, looking upset. “It took out a city block. 132 dead, hundreds injured. The peace talks were canceled. And Charlie and Thornton, they took the fall. They were both suspended, effective immediately.”

Mac’s heart’s hammering so hard now that the machines’ blinking turns frantic and a nurse rushes in, worried. But when she sees Mac awake and Jack sitting there with him, she stops and she and Jack exchange a glance.

Apparently, she knows who they are and why they’re there, what they must be discussing, because all she says when she walks up to the bed and adjusts some settings on the machines and on his IV, is, “Try to relax, Mr. MacGyver. This is not good for you.” 

But Mac’s not listening, he isn’t even really aware of her leaving again. All he can think of is The Ghost, all the death and misery the man caused again. And Mac could’ve stopped him, if only–

“Hey,” Jack says, squeezing his hand, making him open his eyes; Mac wasn’t even aware that he closed them. “ _Stop_ it! Just…  _stop_! You couldn’t have done anything. Did you  _somehow_ miss the part where I told you that you almost  _died_? Because you did.  _Several_ times. You crashed in the ambulance, then in the OR, too. And don’t you  _dare_ do  _that_ to me  _ever_ again, you hear me?” He points with his finger at Mac, glaring, but Mac can see a world of worry and fear in his eyes.

Mac swallows hard, the terrible aftertaste in his mouth adding to his misery, and asks, “What happens now?”

“They set up a unit that’s going after The Ghost,” Jack responds and when Mac opens his mouth, he says over him, “I made sure we would be on it once you’re back on your feet, don’t worry. They weren’t all that happy about it, they tried to throw us under the bus together with Charlie and Thornton - and before you ask, we can’t do anything for them, believe me, I tried, nobody’s listening, they need a scapegoat! - but in the end, they really couldn’t, they couldn't get rid of us that easily, considering we were both out of commission when the bombing went down, so they have nothing on us.

“Besides,” he adds, “like it or not, they can’t deny that you’re their best expert on The Ghost. The higher uppers were actually rather impressed with your work. It seems there’re very few people who ever managed to foil that bastard’s plans.”

Mac closes his eyes. “But I didn’t, did I? Foil them.”  _132 dead._

“Hoss, I would literally shake some sense into you if you didn’t look like you would fall apart at the seams!” Jack snaps quietly, forcing Mac to look at him, holding his eyes firmly. “I get you think you might’ve done something, changed the outcome. And maybe you  _could_ have. But, kid, that warehouse explosion? That was  _three_ days ago.  _Three days_! That’s how long you’ve been out. You’re lucky to be  _alive_ , you idiot!”

And this time Jack’s voice cracks at the end and it’s him who has to close his eyes to steady himself. It’s not until that moment that Mac realizes, that he truly gets it, just how close to dying he came this time around. It’s Jack’s bone-deep  _dread_ that hammers the point finally home.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Yeah, well, you should be, for scaring me like that,” Jack grumbles, glaring at him again.

Then he softens a little, his face and his voice, both. “Look, I  _get_ it. I’m not you, I don’t have your expertise and I still feel somehow…  _responsible_. I keep telling myself,  _if only I had been there, if only I had done this or that_ … It’s nonsense but I can’t help it. So, I get, I  _do_. But you can’t change the past, no matter how hard you try. But you  _can_ do something about the future. So, once you’re out of here, we’ll go and get the bastard, okay? We’ll get him and we’ll make him pay.”

And then, taking a deep breath, Jack adds in a tone of voice that’s  _possibly_  a little pleading, “Tell me we can do that, Mac. Tell me you can go toe-to-toe with The Ghost and win.”

Mac doesn’t have to think about his response twice, there’s no need to hesitate. He  _knows_ he’s good at what he does, that he’s good at reading The Ghost, and if given the slightest chance, he  _can_  beat him at his own game.

He looks straight at Jack and nods. “Yes, Jack. I  _can_ get him.”

Reassured, Jack nods back and says, “Good. So rest and get well. We have work to do. That bastard won’t get away with this.”


End file.
